Mita Williams on Makerspaces

Fab labs, makerspaces designed to be 'open to everyone'

February 3, 2015

In this ALA Master Series session, Mita Williams, user experience librarian at the University of Windsor, explains that fab labs and makerspaces can combat library patrons' anxiety about science.

[video:http://youtu.be/7m8Jh3uiX7I width:560 height:315]

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Mita Williams on Libraries, Maker Movement

ALA Midwinter speaker discusses 19th-century mechanics institutes

ALA Council III Meeting

Attendance drops slightly at ALA Midwinter in Chicago

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PC Mag, Nov. 14; NordPass, Nov. 13; ZDNet, Nov. 14
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AL.com, Nov. 17
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Katie Gaddini writes: “Book bans may have mushroomed in the Trump era of reactionary politics, but they have a well-established history in America. One woman in particular, Norma Gabler, redefined the current strategy and logic behind modern book bans. Called ‘education’s public enemy number one,’ by critics in 1980, Gabler led the crusade against the so-called secular trend in school textbooks throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Even though Norma and her husband Mel worked together, Norma was the public face of their efforts for decades.”

Time: Made By History, Nov. 13
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Many members know Bill Ladewski as executive director of the Reference and User Services Association, an ALA position he has held since 2019. In early September, Ladewski added another title to his CV: director of Member Relations and Services. In this role, he and his team are charged with providing service and information to the Association’s nearly 50,000 members. Ladewski answered our 11 Questions to reintroduce himself to the ALA community.

AL: The Scoop, Nov. 19
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John Warner writes: “I understand what people mean when they invoke the term ‘institutional neutrality,’ but I don’t know how it’s workable in today’s world. Higher education institutions are built upon a foundation of actual values, values that are, by definition, not neutral. The Kalven report, the Rosetta Stone of institutional neutrality produced by a faculty committee at the University of Chicago in 1967, is not a call to make all work emanating from an institution ‘neutral,’ but is instead a call to make the atmosphere for scholarly inquiry and debate as free as possible.”

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